ETC

Deborah Tillett, President / Executive Director

03/24/2017

Are business “incubators” a nicety or a necessity for economic growth in the 21st century? This question has been on a lot of people’s minds recently, following Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh’s March 1 announcement that he will defund the Chesapeake Innovation Center this summer.

According to Deb Tillett, president and executive director of the Emerging Technology Centers, or ETC, an incubator can serve not only as a must-have for any new company, it also can contribute critically to the greater good.

“For nearly 20 years, the ETC has offered startups a safe and controlled environment in which to grow,” says Tillett, who joined as head of the organization in 2012. “We provide affordable, flexible rent, along with basic business services, resources, mentors, and more. Basically, everything you need to get your job done.”

And, she says, the results speak for themselves: In 2016, the ETC, which serves as a non-profit venture of the Baltimore Development Corporation, provided assistance to nearly 185 companies, in various stages of growth, including 89 new firms and 79 graduates. Nearly half of it current companies are minority- and women-owned enterprises. However, the companies and their employees aren’t the only ones to benefit from the ETC.

“We have an economic impact on Baltimore,” Tillett insists. “Every time we work with someone, and they add a new full-time employee, we have just created a new job for the city of Baltimore.”

In fact, the organization’s website states that, between its current member companies and graduate companies, the ETC has contributed to the creation of more than 6,000 jobs in the city — an estimated impact of $1.24 billion. Also, of the 450-plus companies the ETC has served since its inception in 1999, 83% are still in business, 75% have chosen to stay in Baltimore, and 98% remain in Maryland.

Tillett equates the ETC’s success to its tailored approach to helping each entrepreneur and company: “We don’t just give them a program they must do, we offer what they need when they need it, one entrepreneur at a time.”

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About

Founded in the late 1990s as a non-profit 501(c)3 venture of the Baltimore Development Corporation, the ETC (Emerging Technology Centers), promotes economic growth by providing its member companies with the resources they need — seed capital, mentors, potential partners, a collaborative community, etcetera — to get where they want to go, as quickly as possible. Over the years, hundreds of companies have passed through our doors, creating thousands of jobs, and raising billions of dollars in outside funding.

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About

Director, Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, University of BaltimoreHenry Mortimer serves as the Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at the University of Baltimore. He oversees the support and assistance to all UB undergraduate and graduate students and alumni who are intent on establishing an enterprise.

An entrepreneur, strategic advisor, and storyteller, Mortimer has spent more than three decades leveraging the power of the written word to help others define and exceed their goals. In 2008, he founded Mortimer Communications Inc. to help growing companies create messaging that is meaningful and memorable by ensuring that the story they tell resonates with their target audience. Prior to founding his company, Mortimer handled marketing, communications, and business development services for a medical education company that helped major pharmaceutical and biotech companies, including AstraZeneca, Glaxo-Smithkline, and Pfizer, share their stories with healthcare professionals. Mortimer also spent more than two decades in the publishing industry, providing targeted content and editorial direction for a variety of business-to-business, academic, and consumer publications in the Baltimore-Washington region.

Henry Mortimer is also a published author who has written everything from poems, short stories, songs, screenplays, and novels-in-progress, to essays, reviews, criticism, and several books, including a sales and marketing how-to manual.